Roadtripping
by FerrisWheeling
Summary: One van. Two hours. Sixteen teenagers of various species. Let's just get this painful memory in the making over with. ONESHOT


_A loooooooong time ago this was going to be an actual multi-chaptered story and then that stopped happening because I'm a lazy asshole who doesn't take kindly to commitment. All I ever wrote was this, the first chapter, and when I looked back on it, I realized I could just publish it on its own with some tweaking. I think it's fairly funny, so mark this as the only time I ever attempt to write something other than angstangstangst. _

_Blu bluh bluh, enough authoress bitching. Have the product of my flighty muse. _

A single van was nowhere near big enough for sixteen teenagers and, subsequently, sixteen teenagers' worth of crap. A single van, however, was all they had so suck it up, guys: we're playing real-life Tetris here.

Tavros got first pick, what with his my-legs-don't-work routine (Vriska had cried an indignant 'so what? He can't feel his legs! How does that mean he gets shotgun?' after which Kanaya slapped the back of her head in a kindhearted, matronly manner). Thus, the passenger seat was eliminated from the menu.

Dave smirked from behind the steering wheel; for once in his life, he didn't just barely appreciate his junky old boat of a car in an intensely ironic way. Today, he legitimately liked it, because his was the biggest car, which meant it had the biggest chance of everybody being able to sandwich into it, which meant that it was the selected mode of transportation for the trip, which meant he got to drive, which meant he got to laugh quietly and quite coolly at all the poor suckers tangled up in the space where the backseats once were. "Come on, get in. I promise I cleared out all of my bro's smuppets."

The few amongst the crowd who were unfortunate enough to know what smuppets were cringed, and the rest decided ignorance was bliss in a select few situations. Such as this one.

Eridan walked forward first, his chest puffed up. He was going to reserve a nice patch of dingy car floor all for himself, establish his mandatory space bubble, and demand it be respected. He didn't pretend to understand why he had been forced to go on this trip will all of these crass lowbloods and even—ugh—humans. Humans, whose blood color wasn't even on the hemospectrum! How was he supposed to deal with red-blooded freaks like them? And, of course, Vantas, but nobody was allowed to bring that up—Karkat kept his orange fingernails sharpened should such a slip of the tongue occur.

As fate would have it, the moment Eridan established his personal space bubble and settled back as to let the others respect it mightily and fully, Equius stooped in and settled just a tad bit too close for his comfort. He was about to file complaint when Nepeta pounced between them, most definitely abusing his space bubble. His fins flared out in indignation. Before he could reprimand the two, Vriska decided to toss herself into this mess, and was quickly followed by John, who in turn was followed by Jade. Everybody started piling in, and in no time flat, the back of the van was a conglomerate mass of awkward teenage arms and muted shrieks of 'get your horns off of my grubpillows!' And Sollux had somehow ended up molesting the space bubble to the severest degree, practically lounging in Eridan's lap.

Eridan spluttered desperately. Had he been underwater, he would have starting glubbing like mad, but stuff like that didn't translate very well into on-land proclamations.

"If it'th any comfort to you, I'm not too hot about thith either." Sollux spat, looking longingly over to where Aradia was smashed between Feferi's formidable jungle of black hair and the back of the driver's seat. Eridan sniffed and turned his face away, but only ended up being assaulted by Terezi's promiscuous tongue.

She swore she'd been aiming at the window. Not the back of his head. Really.

"We ready?" Dave called. A collective yes was shouted from the backseat, and the car was started up. "How about you?" He turned slightly to Tavros, who nodded meekly. "You sure? I could get him to move if he's bothering you…"

"No. I don't mind. He does stuff like this all the time when I go over to his house." Tavros shrugged. Both boys looked down under the glove compartment where Gamzee was crunched up, his head on Tavros's knee. He wiggled his fingers at the two.

"Either of you motherfuckers even know how this shit works?" He asked, poking the floor. "I mean, bro, like…_cars_. What the fuck are they?"

Dave looked Tavros in the eye: _Are you sure? _Normally he wasn't really into helping people out unless they really needed it and asked him politely beforehand, but, to be frank, Gamzee was weirding him out a little bit. Not that he'd ever admit to it; he was supposed to be tougher than that, living with his Bro and Lil' Cal. Gamzee always had a way of being freaky that Dave just wasn't ready to deal with, especially if he had to deal with it and drive a carful of blabber-mouthed idiots at the same time. If Tavros said yes, that Gamzee most definitely was bothering him, then Dave felt he would be more than happy to kick the clown to the back and let the others deal with him.

"Really, it's fine. I'm, uh, used to it." Tavros smiled a little in an attempt to show that it was totally okay with him. Gamzee grinned crookedly and gave a thumb's up. Then he yawned, causing a wave of hot Faygo-and-sopor-slime-scented breath to assault Dave's sad little nose, and started trying to figure out his shoelaces.

Dave straightened up, trying to accustom himself to pretending Gamzee wasn't lurking about in frightening closeness to his much valued legs. Then he gently tapped the gas and pulled out of his apartment complex's parking garage and into the street. He was so chill with this. So. Chill. He was so completely ready to sit right where he was for the better part of the next two and a half hours as he drove this bandwagon of hooligans, so completely ready to hear Feferi spout out fish puns like a fully-automatic weapon, so completely ready to feel Gamzee creeping his long clammy fingers around his ankle oh God why was this happening to him.

* * *

><p>"Egbert, why are you touching me?"<p>

"Be more supportive of him, Karkles; he's obviously exploring his sexuality! Everybody does it…"

"Shut your mildewed spidertrap, Serket, or I'll take Lalonde's knitting needles and some Gog-awful rusty barbwire and—"

"Mister Vantas, I will calmly implore you to leave my innocent needles out of this."

"Fuck you."

"Mister Vantas…"

_Sigh. _

"Well, Egbert? Better have a fucking good explanation."

"Oh come on, Karkat; we're all smashed in here like sardines! It's pretty much impossible not to be touching somebody. But since you're obviously so upset about it…"

"I'm not upset!"

"Okay, okay, jeez. Just calm down. I'll try not to touch you, if it'll make you feel better."

"Try harder."

"Jegus, shut up. You're so gogdamn annoying sometimes."

"What did I tell you, Serket?"

"Blah, blah, blah. All I hear are empty threats being made by a turdstink who got dropped on his head one too many times as a wriggler."

"Serket!"

* * *

><p>"Shit, bro, what the mother fuck was that?"<p>

"What was what?"

"One moment, the music was all being music and shit. And now there's…there's a strange voice asking me to buy a motherfucking mattress. Tav, I don't motherfucking want a mattress; I already got one of those."

"Ha. Oh, uh, Gamzee, it's just a commercial break."

"…the fuck are you saying here, bro?"

"Haven't you ever listened to the radio before?"

"Fuck, man, how should I know this sort of shit? All I know is sometimes I have music and it's all being so motherfucking miraculous and full of miracles and shit and just…miracle music, bro. You know what I'm saying here?"

"No."

"I'm saying miracles, motherfucker! Miracles!"

"Gamzee, uh, could you please let go of me?"

"Miracles are just all over the motherfucking place, Tavbro."

"I'm really not comfortable with this…"

"Just gotta use your right eyes to see these tricky motherfuckers. They like to hide, you know?"

"Stop hugging me; I can, uh, feel my ribs kind of stabbing into stuff that probably shouldn't, um, be stabbed."

"Miracles, bro, motherfucking miracles…"

"Oh Gog, my lungs."

* * *

><p>"Okay, I've got one!"<p>

"Please, spare my aural sponges. Not that it'll do any good; they've already been pretty fucking thoroughly ravaged by the rest of you douchesprockets."

"Don't listen to him; I'm sure your joke is superfluously entertaining."

"See, Karkat? Kanaya appreciates me!"

"Just fucking get this over with."

"So why'd the monkey fall out of the tree?"

"I'll bite: why?"

"Because it was dead."

"That was so shitty it just mindfucked my sense of humor to death. Good going, Terezi, fucking fabulous job. I'm dead now, you nooksucking, wriggler-eating, heartless hag."

"I really hate to agree with pith-pouch over here, but theriously Terezi? Theriously?"

"Pfft, like it was any better than your elephant joke."

"This is me being dead."

"Shut your stupid face, Karkat. Terezi, I'm sorry, but that was just a smidgen tasteless."

"Whatever, spiderbitch."

"And by a smidgen tasteless, I meant so bizarrely horrid it just shocked everybody here into premature impotence."

"Still dead."

"Well, I have another joke, if my first one wasn't appreciated."

"Pleathe don't."

"Why'd the second monkey fall out of the tree?"

"I thaid don't."

"Because he was stapled to the first monkey!"

"Oh Gog, Terezi, you make me weep tears of horrified shame. Such shame as you will never know."

* * *

><p>You wouldn't be able to tell by just glancing at him, but Dave's fingers were ever-so-slightly digging into the steering wheel. He knew better than to show any physical signs that he was being pushed towards the gaping maw of Shithive Maggots at an alarming pace, and he was really trying to keep himself under control, keep himself from roaring "Don't make me come back there!" and then furiously violating the brake pedal.<p>

Instead, Dave keeps his eyes on the road, trying to ignore the screams behind him, the whirlwind of tasteless jokes, the wildly inappropriate RP that has long since evolved beyond Nepeta's control, and, above all, he tries not to look in the rearview mirror too long in fear of seeing Equius, moisture gathering along his brow. So many highbloods yelling so many demands left and right that it doesn't matter they are rarely, if ever, directing them at him; they're still making demands, and he still has a creeptastic fetish.

Eyes on the road, Strider, eyes on the road. In the distance there is a gas station, but how could he justify a stop so soon into the journey? They've only been on the road for forty five minutes. The gas tank is only a little under full, and nobody's wailing that their bladder has swollen to the size of an average squirrel and will proceed to engulf their other squishy internals should they not be relieved in the ensuing thirty seconds.

He tells himself he can do this. He is a Strider. He has survived for almost eighteen years with Bro as his guardian; most kids he knows would have either gone batshit or called CPS by middle school. If he can handle Bro, Lil' Cal, the smuppets, the refrigerator bloated with shitty swords…if he can handle that clinically insane hodgepodge he gets to call his home life, then he should be able to deal with this.

However, as Dave is quickly finding out, there is a big difference between the kind of weird that goes down in his apartment and the kind of weird that goes down in a car full of bored trolls and humans—but mostly trolls. Karkat's cursing, which Dave sometimes will grudgingly admit to himself is sort of funny, has long since lost its humor. Terezi's snide comments have plummeted from clever to mentally challenged in his head. John's naivety, which is normally annoying but tolerable, now falls barely shy of sending him into conniptions. Even Rose's intelligently destructive sarcasm has lost its seal of Strider Approval.

Then Gamzee licks his shirt, apparently confusing it with one of these miracles he's been blabbering to Tavros about for the entire forty five minutes of travel. That's it.

"Bathroom break." Dave says, so fantastically placated, so gorgeously nonchalant, that he almost convinces himself he's not about to kill somebody as he parks the van in the gas station parking lot.

The doors open before the car stops moving. It's doubtful that anybody's bladder has gotten even halfway close to being the size of a squirrel, but that does not matter. The van has stopped. Everybody is temporarily free.

Slumping from the car seat to his wheelchair, Tavros finally thinks he's starting to get what Gamzee means by 'miracles'.

* * *

><p>"Your tongue is such a gogdamn whore, Terezi." Vriska sighs, flipping her hair in front of the bathroom mirror. Terezi saunters out of the bathroom stall, still fiddling with the zipper on her jeans as she goes to wash her hands. "I bet you'd lick Gamzee's hornpile."<p>

"Whatever. You're just jealous you have to see with your eyes." Terezi flicks water at her. Vriska scowls. "And I bet his horns would taste awesome."

"Would you lick around the bottom of a toilet?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Terezi realizes what she's gotten herself into all too late. One does not challenge Vriska to anything, especially if one's ego is anywhere near as big as hers, which, sadly, Terezi's is.

"Then why don't you?" Vriska smirks, leaning her hip against the sink. Terezi puffs up her cheeks.

Kanaya, having lingered by the door, waiting for her friends to finish up, groans. "You two can be simply atrocious sometimes."

"Yeah, yeah, Kan, we know. Now go on, Terezi; the toilets are waiting."

Rolling her eyes, Kanaya pushes the door open and leaves them alone. She likes the two girls, but that doesn't mean she is required to understand how their topsy-turvy brains function and she would prefer to stay in the dark on such subject matter.

Everybody has deserted the van when Kanaya returns. She stands outside for a moment, not wanting to get back in so soon, but knowing that if she waits too long others will return and she will once again have to travel with Nepeta curled up on her feet. She takes a seat inside, trying to figure out how one might go about making the floor of a van comfortable to sit on. The answer adamantly eludes her, and she resigns herself to her fate.

Rose is the first to return, having scouted out the food supplied inside the gas station. Nothing was quite to her taste, so she left John and Jade to waste all the money they had on candy and salted nuts. She sat down next to Kanaya. The two stared at each other for a moment before looking separate ways. There had always been a little something strange between them, something that neither tried to pinpoint. Or perhaps the something had been pinpointed, but the two had come under wordless agreement to leave it be. Nobody was quite sure, nor did they know how to broach the subject while still keeping the conversation flowing.

"Have you ever been camping before?" Kanaya asked after a minute. She had come to the conclusion that they were going to be alone for a while as the others ran off to do whatever their silly hearts desired, so she might as well talk.

"Never. My mother is not a great fan of the outside. You?"

"Once or twice, but never this far out of the way, you know? I mean, I have been to campgrounds, but I have never travelled so extensively for the sole purpose of pitching a tent for a few nights."

"What's it like?"

Kanaya shrugged. "I do not truly know. The last time I went, I was rather small and do not remember much. I remember thinking it was fun, though." She paused for a few moments, so they could both hear the grasshoppers in the fields around them, and the other cars going past them. "Do you think this will be fun?"

"It'll be…interesting, no doubt." Rose smiled a little. "Oh, I'm sure we'll have fun. Don't worry." She reached over and patted the back of her hand, and then left her hand there, and the two girls looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes, and a couple of faint, dignified blushes were had. And then Gamzee jumped out from under the glove compartment, hooked his foot on the passenger side armrest, and faceplanted before them. Kanaya reclaimed her hand and kneeled forward, tipping Gamzee's head up so his pointed nose did not become ingrained forever in the dirty carpet.

"Gamzee? Are you okay?" She asked, a little worried. While the handful of brain cells he had doubtlessly killed off with that maneuver probably wouldn't make a difference, her mothering instinct was in full gear.

"I am the motherfucking definition of chill right now, brodette. But don't mind me; I was just going to encourage a couple of sisters to hurry up with the sloppy makeouts. You don't have all motherfucking day."

The blushes that resulted from this were less faint and dignified as they had been before Gamzee only smiled and blinked his heavy eyes, happy at the sexual tension he had kindly provided.

"Hey, um, Gamzee, they had Faygo in there, so I got you some."

Kanaya and Rose made room for Tavros a little too quickly as he rolled a liter bottle of Faygo into the van and hefted himself from wheelchair to van, lying on his stomach by Gamzee. The Faygo was quickly uncapped and, as a result, fizzed all over. Gamzee watched the bubbles overflow and scent the carpet with a delicate artificial orange flavor and saccharine smell.

"Motherfucking bubbles. What a fucking miracle."

"Um, Gamzee, it's just carbonization."

"Miracles."

"Carboni—"

"_Miracles_."

"Uh, yeah, okay. Miracles."

"There's a good Tavbro."


End file.
